Getting better
There’s a “Cloud nine” effect that some of us had when we first found sobriety. Some call it the honeymoon stage. It includes a feeling of great joy and relief over having found, at last, an answer to drinking.
This gradually fades away, as it should under normal conditions. We then feel as though we’re in stages of diminishing returns, where the benefits don’t seem as miraculous, and other improvements in our lives seem to come slowly.
The experience we have in getting sober is like that of people who recovery from a terrible physical illness. At first, they feel remarkably better for the first time. But then their recovery becomes taken for granted, and “feeling better” isn’t as remarkable as it was when they first recovered.
We should not expect it to be. Instead, we can focus on the contentment and well-being that living sober and steady improvement give us.
I may not have anything today like the excitement that accompanied early recovery. I’ll be satisfied with the normal blessings of good living.
© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation
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This is why working with others is so important. I get this opportunity by continued attendance at meetings. This keeps my own recovery up to snuff and gives me the sense of accomplishment that comes in early recovery. For me, early in sobriety, I used my own experience to take Step 1. Looking back, I could accept the fact that years before I realized it, I was out of control. And toward the end, I could not stop on my own. Regarding Step 2, I had no experience with any solution. I had to look at the experience of others, those who had come before me. They were fulfilling the 3rd Step prayer, so that I could take Step 2 and "come to believe". Today, by fulfilling the 3rd Step Prayer myself, (take away my difficulties so that others may bear witness to thy power, thy strength, thy way of life), I have the opportunity to give that gift to the next sufferer who comes along and insure my own sobriety. Page 88, line 8 in the Big Book....."It works, it really works.
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